Timeline of the Webster ambush on Christmas Eve

Dec. 29, 2012
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Border Patrol Agents on scene on Lake Road, where two Webster firefighters were killed and two others are wounded after a gunman opened fire after setting a blaze at 191 Lake Road, officials said. / Max Schulte/Staff Photographer

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A timeline of the initial firefighter and police response to the fatal shooting of two firefighters Christmas Eve morning in Webster. The information is based on recorded scanner traffic and interviews with eyewitnesses. The scene was chaotic; some of the available information is conflicting, and the times are not precise. We have attempted to sort through some of the conflicting information. The exact sequence of events may become clearer as authorities investigate, but this is the information we currently have:

5:36 a.m., Dec. 24: 911 receives first call regarding 191 Lake Road for a vehicle fire that has spread to a house.

5:40 a.m.: A second 911 call comes about the fire. Sea Breeze Fire Department in Irondequoit is asked to respond for assistance. Volunteer firefighter Joseph Hofstetter is in his own vehicle behind the firetrucks. Off-duty Greece Police Officer John Ritter is on his way to work, driving westbound on Lake Road a few hundreds yards behind the firetrucks.

5:42 a.m.: A firefighter on Engine 125 announces that they’ve arrived at the scene. Seven seconds later, an unidentified Webster police officer is radioing for help: “We have EMTs down here. Start an ambulance. Don’t know if there are tires popping or gunshots.”

Chiapperini and Kaczowka are mortally wounded by the gunfire. Scardino, shot in the back and leg, takes cover under the firetruck and behind the vehicle’s wheels.

Ritter’s vehicle is struck by gunfire as he comes around the curve near Castaways restaurant. He does not see the firetrucks but sees another vehicle, possibly belonging to Hofstetter, backing up toward him and stopping on the south side of the road.

Ritter pulls his car to the north shoulder, sees a hole in his windshield, checks himself for injuries, and hears what he now realizes are shots being fired. His vehicle is partly disabled, but he drives in reverse back toward the intersection of Lake Road and Bay Street. “I knew this area, and I knew there was only one way in and one way out,” he later said. Ritter stops other volunteer firefighters who are responding to the scene and prevents them from entering the area.

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5:43 a.m.: The Webster police officer reports that he has taken cover near 169 Lake Road and can see the shooter to the north of the road, on a large berm.

The Sea Breeze firetruck reports it has stopped before crossing the outlet bridge, West Webster Pumper 124 has staged near Bay Road.

5:44 a.m.: The Webster officer reports firing four shots at the suspected shooter, but doesn’t know whether he struck the suspect or not. (An autopsy of the suspect’s body later found only a self-inflicted gunshot wound.)

Firefighter Hofstetter radios that he has been shot and is using the fire engine for cover. “Multiple firemen down. Multiple firemen shot. I am shot. I think using an assault rifle.”

5:45 a.m.: The Webster officer sees a police car coming east across the outlet bridge and warns him not to enter the scene.

6:15 a.m.: Residents coming out of their houses are being told by officers to go back inside.

6:29 a.m.: Emergency crews in Irondequoit report that Hofstetter has made his way to the rescue crews at the outlet bridge

6:35 a.m.: SWAT team begins to assemble at a location on Bay Road.

6:36-6:50 a.m.: State Police helicopter and units on the ground try to identify multiple individuals on foot in the area.

6:37-6:58 am: Dispatchers call for all units on the scene to identify themselves and state their location in a radio roll call.

6:54 a.m.: SWAT team moves their Bearcat armored vehicle and emergency evacuation team into the scene to begin extracting the injured.

7:01 a.m.: The Hyper-Reach system is activated to notify residents to stay in their homes, advising residents to stay in place.

7:11 a.m.: Police and SWAT detain some individuals who are running from the scene. They’re later identified as residents.

7:13 a.m.: SWAT reports they have extracted three firefighters from the scene, believed to be firefighter Scardino and the bodies of Chiapperini and Kaczowka,They also report that two structures are “fully involved” with the fire.

7:17 a.m.: Police stop several civilian vehicles attempting to leave the area and search them.

Approximately 9:30 a.m.: Deputies are frisking residents as they remove them from the neighborhood. The residents are taken to buses waiting in Irondequoit. Firefighters move in and begin to fight the fire, which has now spread to several adjacent houses.

9:49 a.m.: Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering tells the media that four firefighters were shot and two are deceased.

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Approximately 10 a.m.: Police report the scene is secured. The shooter’s lifeless body was spotted by a State Police helicopter on the beach.

11:55 a.m.: Chief Pickering confirms that one of the firefighter’s killed is Mike Chiapperini, who also served as a lieutenant with the Webster Police Department. The other deceased firefighter is identified as Tomasz Kaczowka, who works as a Monroe County 911 dispatcher. The chief also says the shooter was found dead and his weapons were recovered. The wounded firefighters are identified as Joseph Hofstetter and Theodore Scardino.

12:30 p.m.: Chief Pickering says that 33 residents were evacuated and that four houses were fully engulfed in flames. (The final total was seven houses destroyed by the fire and two others rendered uninhabitable.)

2:15 p.m.: At an afternoon press briefing, Chief Pickering identifies the suspected shooter as William Spengler, 62, who had been convicted of killing his grandmother in 1980. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Spengler’s sister is still unaccounted for.